Saturday, December 31, 2011

The E and G variants are still going strong with the China Airforce and the China Naval Aviation as "second line" defenders.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

J-7 withdrawn from "front line" service.

This should comes as no surprise as the numbers of J-10 and Su-27/J-11 currently in service are sufficient to cover the slack. That said, it will be years before the current fleet of J-7s can be decommissioned. The J-7 is a short legged point-defense fighter, it should be used as such; deploy them in offensive roles against other 3rd and 4th generations fighters around China seems a bit risky.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Monday, June 06, 2011

A new Chinese tracked vehicle family emerges

Little is known about this new IFV but thus far it seems to have developed a complete family of variants in various stages of testing or field deployments. Some unconfirmed claims pointing to a heavy Type 89/ZSD89/YW534 mod, but without a closer inspection or an official acknowledgement from Norinco, they are still speculations.

At any rate, the PLA is long over due for a modern tracked vehicle, this is especially true consider the weak armor protection the old Type89 and 86 families have to offer.

Monday, December 26, 2011

Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda's recent China visit scored a new current deal that would broaden the global use of the renminbi in the Sino-Japan trade. To top it off, they are working together "to maintain peace on the Korean peninsula". (here). Military exchanges also resumed.

BEIJING, Dec. 24 (Xinhuanet) -- The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces’ destroyer, the Kirisame has ended a five-day friendly visit to China. It departed from Qingdao in eastern China on Friday.

The 4,550-ton ship, carrying around 240 people, travelled from Japan’s Sasebo naval base to Qingdao on Monday. During its trip to China, the two navies held joint exercises and visited each other’s vessels. They also carried out cultural and sports activities.

This was the second visit to China by a Japanese warship and the trip marks the resumption of bilateral navy exchanges. Visits had been cancelled following a collision between a Chinese trawler and Japanese coast guard patrol vessels in September 2010.

Speaking of ERA blocks.....could this be the ultimate edition of the old T54/55 family?

Thanks Imp for the photo.

Bangladesh Army also ordered 300.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Bangladesh Army's New Type59G MBT

According to our friend, the Bangladesh Military Forum, (http://www.bdmilitary.com), the first public appearance of the long-expected Type 59G was reported by today's Channel-i news.

In essence, this latest Type59MBT variant is a Type 96G in a Type59 body modified to carry a 125mm main gun, a modern fire control system, and the latest Chinese armor protection package. A total of 300 examples of the Type59G will be rebuilt from the existing fleet. In addition to the Type59G rebuild program, the Bangladesh army will procure the Type96 MBT in due course as part of a greater modernization drive. Since both MBTs are sharing many common components, this will greatly reduce the load on the existing logistics infrastructure.

Here is a list of Chinese land forces hardware to be procured by the Bangladesh Army compiled by BMF.

Friday, December 23, 2011

The WMD "Three-letter acronym" caught my eye... well, it is not what I thought it was --10,000 WMDs would be a huge news and will be generating unwarranted publicity. It is likely to require a team of dedicated students to study it for three years (and I quote) "to translated hundreds of documents, combed through satellite imagery, obtained restricted Chinese military documents and waded through hundreds of gigabytes of online data." to 'verify' the news.

More than 10,000 Military Dogs Serving in Chinese Army
2011-12-23 21:04:49 Xinhua Web Editor: Zhangxuhttp://english.cri.cn/6909/2011/12/23/2021s673039.htm
More than 10,000 military working dogs (MWDs) are currently serving in the Chinese armed forces, working on missions like peacekeeping, post-disaster search and rescue, and border patrol, according to an army official.

These dogs are currently serving in more than 5,000 army divisions, said Wang Han, an official with the Beijing-based war dog breeding and training center, at a seminar on Friday.

Founded in 1950, China's MWD project was halted in the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution and resumed in 1991.

"In the past five years, our military working dogs have helped solve hundreds of cases. They have been playing a key role in the army that could not be replaced by modern technology or human efforts," said Wang.

According to Wang, the country trains hundreds of war dogs each year for patrol, scout, sentry as well as drug and explosives detection work. The MWD come from ten breeds such as China's Kunming dog, German and Belgian shepherd, Labrador retrievers.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

The 2011 foreign affairs study class of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was opened in the PLA Chengdu Military Area Command (MAC) on December 12, 2011. In the class, the participants summarized the work over the past year and planned the work and tasks for the following year, and studied and discussed the specific measures for pushing forward the scientific development of military foreign affairs work.

The class included special lectures on the current macro-economic situation and maritime security issues. More than 90 people from the four general headquarters/ departments and major organizations of the PLA as well as foreign affairs sections of the PLA troop units open to the outside attended the class.

The military foreign affairs work in the year 2011 saw thorough implementation of the important strategic thinking regarding the major theme and major line put forward by President Hu Jintao, maintained active, pragmatic and effective momentum, and made significant contributions to serving the overall situation of the national foreign affairs work and the army building.

In 2011, the high-ranking officers of the PLA had frequent contacts with their foreign counterparts, as evidenced by PLA’s reception of over 50 important delegations/groups at service commander level and above of the armed forces of foreign countries, holding consultations and dialogues on defense and security with the departments of defense of 11 countries including the United States, Russia, Germany, Turkey, Pakistan and India, and conducting 8 joint drills and trainings with the armed forces of Indonesia, Belarus and Venezuela among others.

The regular press conference system of the Ministry of National Defense (MND) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) has been established, and the PLA work conference on the reform of receiving foreign guests was held. The Chinese military’s relations with its foreign counterparts and the self-construction of PLA’s military foreign affairs work have been further enhanced.